JERUSALEM — Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket aimed at Jerusalem on Friday, setting off air raid sirens throughout the city and opening a new front in three days of fierce fighting between Israel and armed groups in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli campaign has been limited to airstrikes so far. But military officials say they are considering expanding it to a ground campaign.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said the military had called 16,000 reservists to duty on Friday as it geared up for a possible ground offensive.

She said the army had authority to draft an additional 14,000 soldiers. She would not say where the troops were deployed.

As air-raid sirens went off in Jerusalem, witnesses said they saw a stream of smoke in Mevasseret Zion, a Jerusalem suburb.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket landed in an open area near Gush Ezion, a collection of Jewish settlements in the West Bank southeast of the city.

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An attack on Israel’s self-declared capital marks a major escalation by Gaza terrorists, both for its symbolism and its distance from the Palestinian territory. Located roughly 75 kilometres away from the Gaza border, Jerusalem had been thought to be beyond the range of Gaza rocket squads.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Hamas military wing, said the group had fired a long-range rocket at Jerusalem.

“We are sending a short and simple message: There is no security for any Zionist on any single inch of Palestine and we plan more surprises,” he said. Hamas officials said the rocket was a homemade “M-75” rocket, a weapon that has never been fired before.

It also marks a bit of a gamble for the combatants. Gush Ezion is close to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem and just a few kilometres from the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Jews call the compound the Temple Mount because of the biblical Jewish temples that once stood there.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in Jerusalem and nearby areas of the West Bank.

Terrorists already have fired rockets into the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv, another unprecedented achievement, on Thursday. The rocket attacks have not hurt anyone in the bustling metropolis, but have caused panic and jitters.

Just a few years ago, Palestinian rockets were limited to crude, homemade devices manufactured in Gaza. But in recent years, Hamas and other armed groups have smuggled in sophisticated, longer-range rockets from Iran and Libya, which has been flush with weapons since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted last year. Most of the rockets do not have guided systems, limiting their accuracy, though Israeli officials believe the terror groups may have a small number of guided missiles that have not yet been deployed.

The strike occurred on the third day of an Israeli offensive in Gaza meant to halt rocket fire from the crowded seaside strip. Israel began the offensive Wednesday by assassinating Hamas’ military chief and striking dozens of rocket launchers. But terrorists have continued to rain rockets across Israel.

The military spokeswoman said no decision has been made on whether to send ground troops or how long the Israeli offensive will last. Leibovich said all options are open, “including a ground operation.”

Along the border Friday, tanks, armored vehicles and military bulldozers were parked in neat rows. Soldiers milled about, while buses filled with soldiers moved in the area.

Hamas fighters have vowed to resist the Israeli offensive. They received a boost of solidarity on Friday with a visit by Egypt’s prime minister, Hesham Kandil, who called on Israel to end its operation.

In all, 23 Palestinians have been killed, including 11 civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and 250 people wounded. Three Israelis were killed when a rocket hit an apartment building in southern Israel.

The fresh attacks come after Egypt’s attempts to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of Hamas were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the Gaza Strip officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end terrorist rocket fire at Israel.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt’s mediators told Reuters Kandil’s visit “was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve.”

Israel said it would hold to the ceasefire during the visit if Hamas did too. But it said rockets fired from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel as he was in the enclave and has begun drafting 16,000 reserve troops, a possible precursor to invasion.

A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas’s commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

Israel’s military strongly denied carrying out any attack from the time Kandil entered Gaza, and accused Hamas of violating the three-hour deal.

“Even though about 50 rockets have fallen in Israel over the past two hours, we chose not to attack in Gaza due to the visit of the Egyptian prime minister. Hamas is lying and reporting otherwise,” the army said in a Twitter message.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

At a Gaza hospital he held the bloodied body of a child. He left the Gaza Strip after meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the enclave’s prime minister.

WATCH: Gaza rocket fire hits southern Israel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Egypt to use its influence on Hamas to bring the violence to an end, her spokesman said, adding that Israel had the “right and obligation” to protect its population.

“Hamas in Gaza is responsible for the outbreak of violence,” Merkel’s spokesman Georg Streiter told a news conference. “There is no justification for the shooting of rockets at Israel, which has led to massive suffering of the civilian population.”

Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, whose efforts to achieve a treaty with Israel are scorned by Hamas as treason, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s “efforts are focused on one thing: deescalate the violence and save lives in Gaza. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

“No amount of pressure can stop our efforts at the United Nations” to obtain a General Assembly vote at the end of the month granting observer status to the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, he said.

Hamas rejects the diplomacy of Abbas outright. But Erekat said: “It is our brothers’ and sisters’ blood. This is no time for internal squabbles or pointing fingers.”

Israel released a similar statement of purpose.

“If Hamas says it understands the message and commits to a long ceasefire, via the Egyptians or anyone else, this is what we want. We want quiet in the south and a stronger deterrence,” Israeli vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon said.

“The Egyptians have been a pipeline for passing messages. Hamas always turns [to them] to request a ceasefire. We are in contact with the Egyptian defence ministry. And it could be a channel in which a ceasefire is reached,” he told Israeli radio.

Tunisia’s foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday “to provide all political support for Gaza” the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

On Israel’s side of the border there were signs of possible preparations for a ground assault on Gaza. In pre-dawn strikes, warplanes bombed open land along the fence, in what could be a softening-up stage to clear the way for tanks.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. By contrast, Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas’s supporters say they will push ahead with their plan to become an “observer state” rather than a mere “entity” at the United Nations later this month.

Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

The conflict poses a test of Morsi’s commitment to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

With files from Josef Federman, The Associated Press and Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters

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